Director uses the API access key to authenticate an API
request. The access key is a unique security access code
that is associated with a specific Cisco UCS Director user
account. In order to retrieve the API access key for a
specific user, you first log in to Cisco UCS Director with
that specific user account. Then hover the mouse over
the user icon in the top-right corner and select Edit My
Profile from the drop-down list. On the Edit My Profile
page, select Show Advanced Settings and retrieve the API
access key from the REST API Access Key area. There is
also an option to regenerate the access key, if necessary.
Within the user advanced settings is an option to enable
the developer menu. By enabling the developer menu,
access to the REST API browser and the Report
Metadata features is turned on. The REST API browser
becomes visible under the Orchestration tab of Cisco
UCS Director and provides API information and API
code generation capabilities for all available APIs. The
Report Metadata option becomes available on all the
pages of the Cisco UCS Director GUI; when selected, it
returns the API code that the GUI is using to retrieve the
information that is displayed to the user in that specific
page. This code includes a complete URL that is ready to
paste into a browser to send the request to Cisco UCS
Director. Both the REST API browser and the Report
Metadata features are extremely valuable to developers
as they provide ready-to-use sample code and API calls
to all the resources available in Cisco UCS Director.
Figure 9-13 shows the Cisco UCS Director REST API
browser web interface.